On Tuesday, September 4, the Reed College Cooley Gallery will reopen after summertime renovations. (Can the the horrible carpeting and wainscoting truly be gone?) The following night they'll be celebrating their first show in the new space. This commissioned exhibition is a duo show between Marko Lulic and Peter Kreider, in collaboration with PICA's TBA festival, exploring "the invisible bonds between objects and the structures that support them." Opening night festivities feature a public reception with live music and a BBQ.

The Portland Art Museum has
leaked a smidgen of their major programming for the coming years but the best stuff isn't on the list. There are lots
of gaps and omissions, including a major contemporary retrospective (it is too
early to be discussed yet, curated by Bruce Guenther)... so calling this lineup
a more "regional"
focus as the O does misses the mark. Especially considering recent
acquisitions they failed to note and the lineup for the ongoing Miller-Meigs
series which are not listed (other question is why does the O seem to want PAM to
become so regional or isolationist?). Don't worry that isn't happening, the museum is easilly becoming more internationally relevant, while still being more serious about addressing the regional.

*Update here's a quote from Ferriso: "Our goal in developing this series has been to harness the intellectual and physical assets of the Museum and community to stimulate interest and dialogue around key global issues: past, present, and future. ....This series includes large-scale international exhibitions, some conceived at other institutions, but the majority developed through the scholarship of our own curators."

From September 1 through December 2, 2007, PAM presents the work of German-born artist Ursula von Rydingsvard. The exhibition features the monumental hand-carved Pod Pachą, accompanied by a series of drawings completed by von Rydingsvard during her residency in Italy as a recipient of the 2007 Rome Prize. This will be the first showing of von Rydingsvard's work in the Northwest, and the first time she has shown her drawings.

Koolhaas provides somewhat of an example for Portland, which has to own it's contradictions without resolving them in a tidy way.

On Artnet Ben Davis dives headlong into the
question of whether the art market(s) need a new form or forms of critique. I agree the Marxist critique does seem terribly inadequate. Art markets are places where contradictions find consummations. I suspect the high prices of key AbEx artists wont fall much even if there is a correction... they are too historically important, rare and central to understanding America to be effected much. Living artists selling for millions will have a different story.

Curated by Gary Garrels, Eden's Edge: Fifteen L.A. Artists, at the Hammer Museum until September 2, is a cross section of the art scene of Los Angeles bringing together work of artists as diverse as Ken Price, Lari Pittman, Matt Greene, Liz Craft, Anna Sew Hoy and the late Jason Rhoades.

I felt that when I was walking through Eden's Edge, I was traveling up river on my own trip wandering through the various studios of Los Angeles artists and wondering how deep the river really goes...(more)

The ongoing Rembrandt show at PAM is closing on Sunday, September 16. In conjunction with the closing of the exhibition, PAM will present Rembrandt: The Artist and His Collection, a lecture by Professor Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. exploring how Rembrandt's personal collection of artistic and natural treasuries influenced his work. The lecture is on Friday, September 7 at 7pm in the Whitsell Auditorium. Tickets are $10 for non-members, and are available online or at the museum box office.

There will also be a symposium, Rembrandt and Beyond, the following day featuring Dr. Ronni Baer, H. Rodney Nevitt Jr., Ruud Priem, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. The symposium is on Saturday, September 8, from 10am to 2pm. Admission is $25, and includes a box lunch. Tickets are available online, or at the museum box office.

Brittany Powell went art
camping last weekend. Portland isn't like New York or LA, when we reference
the woods and camping it's more legitimate we are litterally 30 minutes from
jaw-dropping wilderness landscapes.

Brian Libby asks SoWhat?
when he visits the new John Ross tower. Libby continues to win cool-points
for conflating JR Ewing with architecture (we gotta be about the same age, some
22 year old is not gonna get why Larry Hackman matters.

Organism presents Model Behavior, an exhibition exploring the role of modeling in contemporary visual culture. The show pushes the boundaries of the "fine art" milieu into the worlds of physics and comic books, including Matt Clark of DC Comics. Other featured artists include Hank Willis Thomas, Yoram Wolberger, Weppler & Mahovsky, and many more.

The Rake Art Gallery is holding a benefit for local designer Kevin Darras, who was injured in a car accident. Clothing screen-printed with Darras' designs will be raffled off, and large prints will be for sale. The benefit also features fire & contortion performances, and cameo appearances by local saucy celebs.
Friday, August 24, 8pm | Rake Art Gallery | 325 NW 6th AVE | 503.914.6391

After several days in LA and San Francisco I'm blogging from beautiful Ashland
Oregon on my way back to Portland, where I will be installing this
show in the Pearl District.

It was a trip evenly split between art and architecture, including Neutra (ugh
did Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher put that monstrosity up next to the Lovell
Health House?). I also saw great examples by Koolhaas, Mayne, Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright, Herzog & de Meuron etc.
The must see shows are... (more)

Kimber Shiroma's latest exhibit, "Entropy and Emergence" is an intriguing show to check out this month at the artist's collective Gallery 114. This new work of Shiroma's is ambitious and experimentally thorough as the artist attempts to mold breath and symbolism into a mishmash of materials that run the gamut of malleability.

This weekend, Tilt Gallery and Project Space will exhibit Utopia Sighs, a project featuring sculpture, video, live performance, and sound by Heidi Schwegler. In collaboration with balloon artist Kelvin Chun, Schwegler will present a one night only performance exploring the "delight, chaos and inescapable trauma of the toddler's party." Don't miss this special event, as Tilt will only be open this one night for the month of August.
Saturday, August 18, 6pm. | Tilt Gallery and Project Space | 625 NW Everett #106 | 908.616.5477

Deenie Grigar's Advanced Digital Media class at Columbia College (Vancouver, WA) needs a Flash instructor for a 2 week residency. The job pays $2400 for 24 hours of teaching, and starts this Monday August 20. The original artist is from the UK and lost his visa at the last minute.

Kehinde Wiley, "Entry Into Paris of the Dauphin, the Future Charles V"

After being rescheduled due to illness, Kehinde Wiley is finally in Portland! He will lecture on "The World Stage" in conjunction with his exhibit at PAM's Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art.

Saturday, August 18, 2pm at the Whitsell Auditorium. Tickets are $5 for members, $10 for non-members, and must be purchased in advance at the museum box office. Tickets already purchased are valid for the rescheduled date.

Todd Gibson, who is sitting in for Tyler Green has chimed in on
the inevitable art market correction. I agree Doig as a living artist is
not worth 11 million and may not even be worth that much 30 years from now but
it's quite possible the 72 million dollar Rothko won't lose that much value. It may have been the ridiculously high prices that made that painting available
on the market in the first place. Sadly 72M is clearly out of range for the
Portland Art Museum, yet as the first place to give Rothko a solo show (and
the city where he grew up) it's a shame.. maybe someone will want a 60 million
dollar tax write-off?

How a correction might effect younger artsts who sell for reasonable amounts
between 5-$50,000 remains yet to be seen. There isn't one art market now, there
are several and I suspect the new popularity of art has created a legion of
new collectors who will continue to collect even if they have less $$$ to collect.
That would translate to a weeding out of galleries in New York and a shrinking
of art fairs at Art Basel Miami Beach... but I don't think it will collapse
the sane parts of the market. In fact it might support it. Portland's art economy
isn't driven by hedge funds either, it is real estate, the fact that we don't
have sales tax and old fashioned interested in art for rts sake collectors. If collectors get scared of manipulated
markets Portland will look more attractive as a more genuine art ecosystem too.
Sure a large scale correction hurts most everybody but it wont be fatal for
Portland. Christies and Sotheby's might have some rough seas ahead though.

The city is hosting two roundtables to discuss issues that were raised during June's creative capacity townhall. The four broad threads to be covered are:
-Artists
-For-profit creative businesses
-Non-profit creative organizations
-Arts education and the new Arts Partners program
The roundtables are on September 17 and September 25, 6:30-8pm at City Hall, 1221 SW 4th AVE. Space is limited to 50 people per thread each night. Please RSVP.
If you missed the townhall, you can watch it here.

Hayden Herrera presents Frida Kahlo: Her Life and Art at PAM. Herrera has published widely on Kahlo, and wrote narration for the award-winning documentary Portrait of an Artist: Frida Kahlo.
Sunday, August 12, 2pm, the Whitsell Auditorium. $10 for non-members.

WARNING this show at Small
a projects is the product of a novel curatorial idea, something which viewers
should always be suspicious of. In this case "Me, you,you. a ventriloquy"
presents artists that treat their aesthetics and materials somewhat like a ventriloquists'
dummy. I take that to mean they are essentially animating the dead skins of
art weve already seen before, while giving it a different voice.

Weird but cool. Sure it is full of pitfalls but I highly recommend this show
of aesthetic sock puppets. (Note the gallery doesn't have regular hours this
month but you can call ahead 503 234-7993 and set a time no doubt gallerist
Laurel Gitlen will often be there taking care of details for the Affair @ the
Jupiter hotel art fair Sept 14-16).

Audio Cinema presents the second annual Audio Cinema Visual Collective Exhibition, featuring a diverse group of West Coast artists working in many different media. Audio Cinema's 10,000 square foot warehouse space allows for installation, performance, and wall-mounted art to function harmoniously in a single exhibition.

Add Brian Wannamaker to the list of Portland developers who add to the art
community here, and now the Tribune has covered his new
Falcon Art Community project.

The list of conscientious players here is long and very important; Al Solheim,
Jim Winkler, Ken
Unkeles, Brad Malsin, Randy
Rapaport, David Gold and a while back Homer Williams was involved in the
Pearl Arts Foundation, which brought us the Kenny Scharf Tiki totems and William
Wegman dog bowl. These developers are partially why Portland is so unlike San
Diego and Phoenix. Still, I believe it is essential that the city find a way
to further incentivise development of live/work and exhibition spaces.

In case you missed it in the NYT's Roberta Smith took on the long overlooked
Peter
Young who has a show at PS.1. It seems fitting that with all the focus on
psychedelia after Dave Hickey's Site Santa Fe show & the 2002 Whitney Biennial that some artists from the 60's
and 70's might get a revival. Yayoi Kusama has already gone through the roof
as have Jessica Steincamp, Chris Johanson, Karin Davie, Tim Bavington and Katarina
Grosse. There is a younger group of artists like Takeshi
Murata and Portlander Shawna
Ferreira too. The Portland Art Museum even has an excellent Peter Young on display (fittingly in the big Greenberg room). The painting was given by the exceedingly sharp-eyed Ed Cauduro... the quality of his Warhols,
Basquiats, Schnabels, Christopher Wools etc. establish him as the sharpest eyed
collector in the Pacific Northwest. He even collected John Chamberlain's first
crushed car sculpture, "Short Stop."

Local performance and installation duo Sincerely, John Head are hosting a fundraiser on their own behalf at Tiga. Scott Porter will get his hair done on the tailgate of a '77 Ranchero in the parking lot while live DJs spin some of the music inspiring the ongoing SJH box set. There will be cheap raffle tickets for a variety of prizes, and $2 will be added to every bill to benefit the group.

The RACC presents Below Marquam, an installation in the Portland Building Installation Space by Benjamin Stagl. The project will transform the space into a view from below the east end of the Marquam bridge. With Below Marquam, Stagl is opening a dialog into our creative relationship with urban space. He hopes to eventually build a light-based installation under the bridge itself.Below Marquam will be on view from August 6 - September 4 at 1120 SW 5th Ave.

The annual Mostlandia championships are upon us! Sponsored this year by Gallery Homeland in conjunction with Scratching the Surface, the championships feature navigation, cigarette rolling, singing, skating, and a variety of other bizarre and exciting activities on August 4th & 5th. Only Citizens and children under 12 may participate, but everyone is invited to come enjoy the festivities and root for their favorites. Check out the schedule for more information.

For something less sarcastic... the
Guardian interviews Oscar Niermeyer. Though with all the gushing over Castro and the fawning over Brasilia's exceptional architecture (while avoiding its exceptionally iffy civic design) maybe some serious sarcasm is warranted. It's the sort of power meets buildings problem that often gets architects into trouble with historians and the people who have to live in their creations.

Regina Hackett is discussing animals
in Northwest art. Nothing sarcstic there, animals have been a big deal in the art world since the 90's.